Robust Consensus of Higher-Order Multi-Agent Systems With Attrition and Inclusion of Agents and Switching Topologies

TL;DR

This paper introduces a novel distributed consensus protocol for higher-order multi-agent systems that remains effective despite agent attrition, inclusion, uncertainties, and switching network topologies, validated through simulations.

Contribution

It develops the RAIDD protocol using a $ u$-gap metric approach and Glover-McFarlane robust stabilization, addressing practical challenges in multi-agent consensus.

Findings

The RAIDD protocol achieves consensus under uncertain conditions.

Sufficient conditions for protocol existence are derived.

Numerical simulations confirm the protocol's effectiveness.

Abstract

Some of the issues associated with the practical applications of consensus of multi-agent systems (MAS) include switching topologies, attrition and inclusion of agents from an existing network, and model uncertainties of agents. In this paper, a single distributed dynamic state-feedback protocol referred to as the Robust Attrition-Inclusion Distributed Dynamic (RAIDD) consensus protocol, is synthesized for achieving the consensus of MAS with attrition and inclusion of linear time-invariant higher-order uncertain homogeneous agents and switching topologies. A state consensus problem termed as the Robust Attrition-Inclusion (RAI) consensus problem is formulated to find this RAIDD consensus protocol. To solve this RAI consensus problem, first, the sufficient condition for the existence of the RAIDD protocol is obtained using the $\nu$-gap metric-based simultaneous stabilization approach. Next, the RAIDD consensus protocol is attained using the Glover-McFarlane robust stabilization method if the sufficient condition is satisfied. The performance of this RAIDD protocol is validated by numerical simulations.